An important large family of enzymes is the protein kinase enzyme family. Currently, there are about 500 different known protein kinases. Protein kinases serve to catalyze the phosphorylation of an amino acid side chain in various proteins by the transfer of the γ-phosphate of the ATP-Mg2+ complex to said amino acid side chain. These enzymes control the majority of the signaling processes inside cells, thereby governing cell function, growth, differentiation and destruction (apoptosis) through reversible phosphorylation of the hydroxyl groups of serine, threonine and tyrosine residues in proteins. Studies have shown that protein kinases are key regulators of many cell functions, including signal transduction, transcriptional regulation, cell motility, and cell division. Several oncogenes have also been shown to encode protein kinases, suggesting that kinases play a role in oncogenesis. These processes are highly regulated, often by complex intermeshed pathways where each kinase will itself be regulated by one or more kinases. Consequently, aberrant or inappropriate protein kinase activity can contribute to the rise of disease states associated with such aberrant kinase activity. Due to their physiological relevance, variety and ubiquitousness, protein kinases have become one of the most important and widely studied family of enzymes in biochemical and medical research.
The protein kinase family of enzymes is typically classified into two main subfamilies: Protein Tyrosine Kinases and Protein Serine/Threonine Kinases, based on the amino acid residue they phosphorylate. The serine/threonine kinases (PSTK), includes cyclic AMP- and cyclic GMP-dependent protein kinases, calcium- and phospholipid-dependent protein kinase, calcium- and calmodulin-dependent protein kinases, casein kinases, cell division cycle protein kinases and others. These kinases are usually cytoplasmic or associated with the particulate fractions of cells, possibly by anchoring proteins. Aberrant protein serine/threonine kinase activity has been implicated or is suspected in a number of pathologies such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, septic shock, bone loss, many cancers and other proliferative diseases. Accordingly, serine/threonine kinases and the signal transduction pathways which they are part of are important targets for drug design. The tyrosine kinases phosphorylate tyrosine residues. Tyrosine kinases play an equally important role in cell regulation. These kinases include several receptors for molecules such as growth factors and hormones, including epidermal growth factor receptor, Insulin receptor, platelet derived growth factor receptor and others. Studies have indicated that many tyrosine kinases are transmembrane proteins with their receptor domains located on the outside of the cell and their kinase domains on the inside. Much work is also under progress to identify modulators of tyrosine kinases as well.
A major signal transduction systems utilized by cells is the RhoA signalling pathways. RhoA is a small GTP binding protein that can be activated by several extracellular stimuli such as growth factor, hormones, mechanic stress, osmotic change as well as high concentration of metabolite like glucose. RhoA activation involves. GTP binding, conformation alteration, post-translational modification (geranylgeranyllization and farnesylation) and activation of its intrinsic GTPase activity. Activated RhoA is capable of interacting with several effector proteins including ROCKs and transmit signals into cellular cytoplasm and nucleus.
ROCK1 and 2 constitute a family of kinases that can be activated by RhoA-GTP complex via physical association. Activated ROCKs phosphorylate a number of substrates and play important roles in pivotal cellular functions. The substrates for ROCKs include myosin binding subunit of myosin light chain phosphatase (MBS, also named MYPT1), adducin, moesin, myosin light chain (MLC), LIM kinase as well as transcription factor FHL. The phosphorylation of theses substrates modulate the biological activity of the proteins and thus provide a means to alter cell's response to external stimuli. One well documented example is the participation of ROCK in smooth muscle contraction. Upon stimulation by phenylephrine, smooth muscle from blood vessels contracts. Studies have shown that phenylephrine stimulates b-adrenergic receptors and leads to the activation of RhoA. Activated RhoA in turn stimulates kinase activity of ROCK1 and which in turn phosphorylates MBS. Such phosphorylation inhibits the enzyme activity of myosin light chain phosphatase and increases the phosphorylation of myosin light chain itself by a calcium-dependent myosin light chain kinase (MLCK); and consequently increases the contractility of myosin-actin bundle, leading to smooth muscle contraction. This phenomena is also sometimes called calcium sensitization. In addition to smooth muscle contraction, ROCKs have also been shown to be involved in cellular functions including apoptosis, cell migration, transcriptional activation, fibrosis, cytokinesis, inflammation and cell proliferation. Moreover, in neurons ROCK plays a critical role in the inhibition of axonal growth by myelin-associated inhibitory factors such as myelin-associated glycoprotein (MAG). ROCK-activity also mediates the collapse of growth cones in developing neurons. Both processes are thought to be mediated by ROCK-induced phosphorylation of substrates such as LIM kinase and myosin light chain phosphatase, resulting in increased contractility of the neuronal actin-myosin system.
Inhibitors of ROCKs have been suggested for use in the treatments of a variety of diseases. They include cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension, chronic and congestive heart failure, cardiac hypertrophy, restenosis, chronic renal failure and atherosclerosis. In addition, because of its muscle relaxing properties, it is also suitable for asthma, male erectile dysfunctions, female sexual dysfunction and over-active bladder syndrome. ROCK inhibitors have been shown to possess anti-inflammatory properties. Thus they can be used as treatment for neuroinflammatory diseases such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and inflammatory pain, as well as other inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease. In addition, based on their neurite outgrowth inducing effects, ROCK inhibitors could be useful drugs for neuronal regeneration, inducing new axonal growth and axonal rewiring across lesions within the CNS. ROCK inhibitors are therefore likely to be useful for regenerative (recovery) treatment of CNS disorders such as spinal cord injury, acute neuronal injury (stroke, traumatic brain injury), Parkinsons disease, Alzheimers disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. Since ROCK Inhibitors reduce cell proliferation and cell migration, they could be useful in treating cancer and tumor metastasis. Further more, there is evidence suggesting that ROCK inhibitors suppress cytoskeletal rearrangement upon virus invasion, thus they also have potential therapeutic value in anti-viral and anti-bacterial applications. ROCK inhibitors are also useful for the treatment of Insulin resistance and diabetes.
The Aurora family of serine/threonine kinase is essential for cell proliferation [Bischoff, J. R. & Plowman, G. D., The Aurora/lp11p kinase family: regulators of chromosome segregation and cytokinesis, Trends in Cell Biology, 9, 454-459 (1999); Giet, R. and Prigent, C., Aurora/lp11p-related kinases, a new oncogenic family of mitotic serine-threonine kinases, Journal of Cell Sciences, 112, 3591-3601 (1999); Nigg, E. A., Mitotic kinases as regulators of cell division and its checkpoints, Nat. Rev. Mol. Cell. Biol., 2, 21-32 (2001); Adams, R. R., Carmena, M. and Earnshaw, W. C., Chromosomal passengers and the (aurora) ABC's of mitosis, Trends in Cell Biology, 11, 49-54 (2001); Warner, S. L. et al., Targeting Aurora-2 kinase in cancer, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 2(6), 589-595 (2003)] Inhibitors of the Aurora kinase family therefore have the potential to block growth of all tumor types.
Since its discovery in 1997, the mammalian Aurora kinase family has been closely linked to tumorigenesis. Compelling evidence for this is that over-expression of Aurora-A transforms rodent fibroblasts (Bischoff, J. R. et al., A homologue of Drosophila aurora kinase in oncogenic and amplified in human colorectal cancers, EMBO J. 17, 3052-3065; 1998). Cells with elevated levels of this kinase contain multiple centrosomes and multipolar spindles, and rapidly become aneuploid. The oncogenic activity of Aurora kinases is likely to be linked to the generation of such genetic instability. Indeed, a correlation between amplification of the aurora-A locus and chromosomal instability in mammary and gastric tumors has been observed. (Miyoshi, Y., Iwao, K. Egawa, C., and Noguchi, S., Association of centrosomal kinase STK15/BTAK mRNA expression with chromosomal instability In human breast cancers, Int J. Cancer, 92, 370-373; 2001). (Sakakura, C et al., Tumor-amplified kinase BTAK is amplified and overexpressed In gastric cancers with possible involvement In aneuploid formation, British Journal of Cancer, 84, 824-831; 2001). The Aurora kinases have been reported to be over-expressed in a wide range of human tumors. Elevated expression of Aurora-A has been detected in over 50% of colorectal (Bischoff, J. R. et al., A homologue of Drosophila aurora kinase is oncogenic and amplified in human colorectal cancers, EMBO J., 17, 3052-3065; 1998); (Takahashi, T. et al., Centrosomal kinases, HsAIRk1 and HsAIRK3, are overexpressed in primary colorectal cancers, Jpn. J. Cancer Res., 91, 1007-1014; 2000); ovarian cancers (Gritsko, T. M. et al., Activation and over-expression of centrosome kinase BTAK/Aurora-A in human ovarian cancer, Clinical Cancer Research, 9, 1420-1426; 2003), gastric tumors (Sakakura, C. et al., Tumor-amplified kinase BTAK is amplified and overexpressed in gastric cancers with possible involvement in aneuploid formation, British Journal of Cancer, 84, 824-831; 2001), 93% in pancreatic cancers (Rojanala, S. et al., The mitotic serine threonine kinase, Aurora-2, is a potential target for drug development in human pancreatic cancer, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, 3(4), 451-457; 2004) and in 94% of invasive duct adenocarcinomas of the breast (Tanaka, T. et al., Centrosomal kinase AIK1 is overexpressed in invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast, Cancer Research, 59, 2041-2044; 1999). High levels of Aurora-A have also been reported in renal, cervical, neuroblastoma, melanoma, lymphoma, pancreatic and prostate tumor cell lines. (Bischoff, J. R. et al., A homologue of Drosophila aurora kinase is oncogenic and amplified in human colorectal cancers, EMBO J. 17, 3052-3065 (1998); (Kimura, M. Matsuda, Y., Yoshioka, T., and Okano, Y., Cell cycle-dependent expression and centrosomal localization of a third human Aurora/lpll-related protein kinase, AIK3, Journal of Biological Chemistry, 274, 7334-7340 (1999); (Zhou et al., Tumor amplified kinase STK15/BTAK Induces centrosome amplification, aneuploidy and transformation, Nature Genetics, 20, 189-193; 1998); (Li et al., Over-expression of oncogenic STK15/BTAK/Aurora-A kinase in human pancreatic cancer, Clin. Cancer Res., 9(3), 991-7; 2003). Amplification/over-expression of Aurora-A is observed in human bladder cancers and amplification of Aurora-A is associated with aneuploidy and aggressive clinical behavior (Sen. S. et al., Amplification/over-expression of a mitotic kinase gene in human bladder cancer, J. Natl. Cancer Inst., 94(17), 1320-9; 2002). Moreover, amplification of the aurora-A locus (20q13) correlates with poor prognosis for patients with node-negative breast cancer (Isola, J. J. et al., Genetic aberrations detected by comparative genomic hybridization predict outcome in node-negative breast cancer. American Journal of Pathology, 147, 905-911; 1995). In addition, an allelic variant, isoleucine at amino acid position 31, is reported to be a low-penetrance tumor-susceptibility gene and displays greater transforming potential than the phenylalanine-31 variant (Ewart-Toland, A. et al., Identification of Stk6/STK15 as a candidate low-penetrance tumor-susceptibility gene in mouse and human, Nature Genetics, 34(12), 403-412; 2003) and is associated with increased risk for advanced and metastatic disease (Miao, X. et al. Functional STK15 Phe31lle polymorphism is associated with the occurrence and advanced disease status of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, Cancer Research, 64, 2680-2683; 2004).
Aurora-B is highly expressed In multiple human tumor cell lines, including leukemic cells (Katayama et al., Human AIM-1:cDNA cloning and reduced expression during endomitosis in megakaryocyte-lineage cells, Gene, 244, 1-7). Levels of this enzyme increase as a function of Duke's stage in primary colorectal cancers (Katayama, H. et al., Mitotic kinase expression and colorectal cancer progression. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 91, 1160-1162; 1999). Aurora-C, which is normally only found in germ cells, is also over-expressed in a high percentage of primary colorectal cancers and In a variety of tumor cell lines including cervical adenocarinoma and breast carcinoma cells (Kimura, M., Matsuda, Y., Yoshioka, T., and Okano, Y., Cell cycle-dependent expression and centrosomal localization of a third human Aurora/pll-related protein kinase AIK3, Journal of Biological Chemistry, 274, 7334-7340; 1999 and Takahashi, T. et al., Centrosomal kinases, HsAIRk 1 and HsAIRK3, are over-expressed in primary colorectal cancers, Jpn. J. Cancer Res., 91, 1007-1014; 2000).
The present inventors have discovered novel indazole amide compounds, which are inhibitors of ROCK and/or Aurora kinase activity. Such derivatives are useful in the treatment of disorders associated with inappropriate ROCK and/or Aurora kinase activity.